media

The media is excluding candidates from the debates. AGAIN!
Lately it's been the media (IE..ABC/Disney, Fox & now NBC/GE) that want to exclude viable candidates. These media outlets and their pundits are trying to select your candidates and manipulate the public perception of exactly who is viable and electable with words and polls.

Take action, please...

Every time Pat has some bad press, say that his popularity is plummeting, our Pat McHorny has a great record of getting some major publications to print cutesy puff pieces about how he really isn't a nasty hypocrite (say, over earmarks) or really isn't all that connected to his staffer's voter fraud or that didn't have anything to do with the half dozen irregularities in his financial disclosures.

Insiders say his recent popularity plummet coincides with the publication of information to back the previous rumors that Pat is not, shall we say, living his life with the family values of his campaign rhetoric. So, we shouldn't be all that surprised that The Hill stepped up to the media-whore-for-Republicans plate by printing this nauseating crap about House Cloak Room rumors of a girlfriend.

But really, folks, they must be getting pretty damn desperate. His supposed love interest (Congresswoman Mary Fallin) is definitely not interested.

On CNN.com this morning, the story "Germany: Massive Terror Attacks Foiled" briefly held the main headline spot. Much to my dismay, this attention-getting spot was quickly taken over by "'She-Male' leads prisoners in dance."

As I said on Ex, here's A few thoughts on the press and the legislature aimed at no one person or entity. Honest.

Letter to no one in particular

This year there proved to be at least one great advantage to having been denied membership to the 2007 edition of the Capital Press Corps: I didn’t have to write about what a regular guy Don Beason is and how I was either shocked or knew all along that he was the one who “loaned” Jim Black half-a-mil’. Unlike some of the pros up in Raleigh, I’m not used to explaining how it’s important I get cozy with lobbyists and insiders and how I’m completely immune to their charms.

Just watched Headline Saturday and I'm sorry to say that it had one of the more in-depth segments on the real estate transfer tax debate. Sorry because it was horribly shallow.

The real estate transfer tax debate is an example of inside baseball in Raleigh having a detrimental effect on the rest of us.

Nothing but a bunch of hyperbole and scare tactics and talking points and a truly flaccid press standing on the sidelines playing on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand.

The big money people are trying to make it seem like they're standing for the little folks -- that they're the only ones keeping big government from your wallet.

Here's a couple of facts I heard unchallenged:
• 81 percent of the public is opposed to a real estate transfer tax.

Last Thursday I attended the monthly meeting of the Mecklenburg County chapter of Woman for President 2008 where UNCC lecturer Carol Gay was presenting the topic “Media Coverage of Women in Politics.”

Although I hadn’t attended any prior meetings of the WFP ’08 group, I knew I had to participate in this discussion. You see, just a few weeks before receiving the invitation, I had read the Washington Post’s coverage of Speaker Pelosi’s decision to appoint Alcee Hastings as chair of the House Intelligence Committee over the Committee’s Ranking Democrat, Jane Harman. While Pelosi’s choice to by-pass the ranking member may have been notable, the most astonishing aspect of the story was how it was played by the media, specifically, through the use of the term

Cat Fight.

The head of the Department of Health and Human Services launched a massive change in mental health services on the day before Easter weekend, making rate cuts retroactive over a month. The same person yesterday released an “effective immediately” memo with another massive change in mental health services. Mental health providers, by and large private/for-profit businesses, already destabilized by five years of rapid changes in the state’s mental health reform, all had to rewrite their business plans on April 5th in response to the surprise 33% rate cuts. Today they’re again figuring out how best to go out of business.

Via Ex:
Eighty degrees today (maybe). Spring is all in like a lion in the sun or something.

Meanwhile,

• According to Media Matters, the Sanford Herald (which has a terrible Web site) is among the eight papers to drop Coulter of late;
• Rep. Wright resigns his leadership posts;
• S.C. GOP blasts Edwards early and often;
• Warthogs are getting a new ballpark;
• Walter Dalton announces he's running for Lt. Governor;
Oh, and the White House wanted to fire all the prosecutors, but the AG decided on just a handful. What a guy.
Also, dang it—a lawsuit and right at the wrong time.

First it was John Edwards's mansion preventing him from fighting poverty. Now, it's Al Gore's energy-guzzling mansion stopping him from fighting global warming. Gore's getting solar panels on the roof and all his energy is renewable. But that's not the point.

If you want to lead a movement, you should not have the slightest appearance of hypocrisy. That means no mansions, no SUVs, no exploited immigrant maids, nothing. If it means living a little below your rich buddies, so be it. This is not just your job, it is your responsibility to a movement of millions of people who have put their trust in you as their leader.

Probably no candidates are going to read this. But the point